Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You're
Doing It, by Howard S. Becker.Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.232p.$35.00.ISBN 0-226-04123-9.LC 97-19618.

These
are conceptual tricks that will aid you in keeping an eye on the forest while
you examine the trees.Becker is an
advocate of richly descriptive qualitative research, an approach currently
favored by many librarians. It is easy
to become overwhelmed by the wealth of data in such a study; librarians can
lose sight of the whys, whats and wherefores of their research. Becker's tricks will aid the researcher in recognizing
his own hidden assumptions, collecting the most illustrative data, permiting
concepts to spring from the data, and exposing hidden logical flaws.These four tasks represent the four main
sections of the book that carry the chapter headings: imagery, sampling,
concepts and logic.

An
examination of imagery is the first, and in many ways, the central theme of the
book.Images drive research projects by
suggesting convention research questions, identifying typical research
subjects, and providing the researcher with an identity vis-a-vis the project
and the subjects.An examination of
imagery forces the researcher to recognize his latent assumptions. Becker suggests numerous tricks to help researchers
orient themselves such as seeing society as an organism, viewing events as the
results of processes and evaluating types of activities instead of types of people. Becker illustrates how objects can be viewed as congealed social
agreements, that everything is in its current place for a reason and that the
researcher can rewind time's tape backwards to explain the current
configuration.These tricks will be
valued by part-time researchers (such as librarians) whose tendency is to
isolate research phenomena and thereby lose richness of description and
explanatory power. This is the first substantive chapter of the book and the
strongest, setting the basic values orientation for all that follows.

Sampling
is the source for the rich data that Becker wishes to describe, but he critiques
random sampling, which produces only the average case.He argues
in favor of selecting highly unusual cases.He recognizes the danger of the "bad sample" problem that inhibits
the ability to generalize to a larger population, but his interest is in
discovering the deeper structure of sociological situations.In the chapter on sampling, Becker's
relationship to standard social science becomes clear: his work is most
valuable for theory development, not for theory testing and evaluation.Normally, the social scientist and librarian
intent on qualitative research is interested in testing results against the
null hypothesis of randomness, so as not to be fooled by random selection.Becker's work, on the other hand, is more
useful for theory development, and thus is not based on random sampling and
classical hypothesis testing.

Theory
generation is illustrated by the chapters on concepts and logic.Becker stresses that concepts arise from the
data collected, and not vice versa. He
cautions that using preset categories leads not to empirical findings but only
definitional artifacts.He stresses the
uniqueness of each case, and that by revealing the deep structure of each case,
argues that every subject can make a theoretical contribution.These arguments can have great utility for
librarians, who for years have presented research studies of their libraries,
and suffered the problem of limited generalizability.Becker's work presents a theoretical way around this problem by
providing an intellectual framework for the qualitative research approach.This book will best appreciated by readers
who already possess a strong background is standard social science and can therefore
appreciate Becker's contribution as a critic of the research status quo.